When analyzing any form of public discourse, we need to realize that when something is revealed, something else, possibly more significant, may be concealed. The idea of coding has acquired special importance in the digital age. Only recently, just before the revelation of artificial intelligence, youngsters were told to learn to code if they wanted to get a job.

Language is a code of communication. Coding can be direct and simple. We call that kind of coding “informative.” Apparently, it’s also possible to code disinformation and misinformation. In the world of public discourse and legacy journalism, politicians, pundits and reporters sometimes twist the valuable information they provide to hide what they, their party leaders or their editors don’t want us to see.

The summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that took place in Anchorage, Alaska, earlier this month inspired two seasoned journalists to use the expression “code for” (in one case a verb, in the other a noun) to reveal exactly how that process of concealing unwanted meaning works. The first example comes from author Mansur Mirovalev’s for the news publication Al Jazeera, bearing the title: “‘Feeding a narcissist:’ Ukraine reflects on Trump-Putin summit.” The author begins by citing what is an undeniable fact:

“Putin said the ‘root causes’ of the war should be addressed before any ceasefire or real steps towards a peace settlement are made.”

It’s a straightforward fact that shouldn’t be difficult for Al Jazeera’s readers to understand. We might even call it common sense. The Russians have repeatedly insisted on returning to the “root causes” or historical context of the conflict. Understanding the motivation of the parties involved is critical to conflict resolution. The website helpfully reminds us with this title of its article on the topic: “The First Step in Properly Understanding Conflict: Identifying the Sources.”

But journalists, their editors or employers may feel impelled to do the opposite. Depending on their intent, they may want to present historical reality as an unnecessary distraction. Here is Mirovalev’s gloss on ��ܲ�������’s demand:

“‘Root causes’ is Putin’s code for rejecting Ukraine’s existence outside Moscow’s political shadow and denying its very sovereignty.”

Now, this is manifestly misleading, if not patently dishonest. His claim that Putin is “rejecting Ukraine’s existence” is unfounded and undocumented; in other words, it is invented. It’s the journalist who’s using the ploy of “code for” to reject out of hand the idea that examining root causes has any validity.

Our second example is an by East and Central Europe Bureau Chief Andrew Higgins of The New York Times with the title: “Putin Sees Ukraine Through a Lens of Grievance Over Lost Glory.” Another example of assuming without evidence what’s on Putin’s mind.

“President Vladimir V. Putin made clear after his meeting in Alaska with President Trump that his deepest concern is not an end to three and a half years of bloodshed. Rather, it is with what he called the “situation around Ukraine,” code for his standard litany of grievances over ��ܲ�������’s lost glory.”

�մǻ岹��’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Code for:

A journalistic trope designed to make readers forget what they know about the literal meaning of words and believe a meaning contrary to both the dictionary and common sense. 

Contextual note

Far be it from a Devil’s Dictionary to insist that people should trust dictionaries to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. At best, dictionaries list the usual denotative sense of words as they have occurred in both the literary and spoken tradition. Because dictionaries avoid speculating on the theoretically infinite number of contexts in which a word can be used, they cannot account for intentional distortion or rhetorical effects, such as sarcasm, that can quite simply invert the meaning of a word.

In the two cases cited above, we are witnessing a journalistic practice common in an era like our own that encourages and even requires exaggerated propaganda. The trick these two jouranlists have used is to mix with the facts they present a fabricated “insight” claimed to be the result of the journalists’ inside knowledge or superior intellectual authority. They then call this an act of “decoding” or interpreting for the sake of the ignorant.

Why should I criticize that practice? In some sense, that is precisely what a Devil’s Dictionary attempts to do. The difference is that when we assume the identity of the devil, we are announcing an act of studied cleverness, or even perversity. We expect no one will take it seriously or believe that it’s the “true” definition. 

But there is another important difference. A Devil’s Dictionary definition is a direct invitation to explore context, investigate ambiguity, dig more deeply into an issue than simply accepting either what the initial quote contained or what the devil’s new definition implies.

Historical note

Ambrose Bierce, the brilliant novelist and journalist who authored the Devil’s Dictionary, redefined words to satirize the popular political, institutional, social and economic culture of his time. Here is his reflection on the nuclear family in the United States of his era.

“MARRIAGE: The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two.”

Although this sounds contrary to common sense because of its contestable arithmetic, its absurdity reveals a perception that many married people might acknowledge: that the state of marriage deprives both the husband and wife of the glorious freedom they enjoyed before marriage. Were he writing in today’s age of woke, we can imagine that his editor might oblige him to revise the definition in the following cumbersome way:

“MARRIAGE: The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress (or two masters and two mistresses), and two slaves, making in all, two.”

After which, his truly woke editor might even tell him to change “two masters and two mistresses” to “two masters and two masteresses” on the grounds that the term mistress is in itself .

Here’s another of Bierce’s definitions, this time related to his profession of journalism:

“EDITOR: A person who combines the duties of a censor, a copy-reader, a news-gatherer, and a reporter. To the virtues of all these he adds the vices of none.”

I suspect that both journalists mentioned above — Mirovalev and Higgens — might be tempted to agree with Bierce’s definition of their boss. Bierce’s irony suggests that an editor, by combining these diverse and contradictory roles, is, to invert the proverb, the master of all trades and a jack of none, ready to compromise in the name of respecting “superior” constraints. Bierce’s contention that the editor lacks the corresponding vices has the wonderful ironic effect of defining the editor as a soulless, puritanical authority whose business as a censor ensures that the naked truth (God forbid!) will never appear, but rather a carefully sanitized version of it.

Had Mirovalev and Higgens taken seriously their role as journalists, they would at some point have alluded to the importance of understanding “root causes” might have in the context of negotiating the kind of peace treaty Trump and Putin agreed to promote. Rather than claiming to decode it (and change its meaning), they could have done what our Devil’s Dictionary has systematically done throughout its history since 2017. We examine the use not only in its contemporary context, but also further back in history.

The propaganda machine churning away at the core of our legacy media since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has labored at inventing ways to avoid or exclude historical context. The use of the expression “code for” is just one trivial example. Clearly, the best documented ploy has been the endlessly repetitive insistence on labeling the action Putin termed a “Special Military Operation” an “unprovoked full-scale invasion.” That is the official that then-US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s State Department provided, inviting every editor in the legacy media to repeat the adjective “unprovoked” whenever referring to the war in Ukraine. Abolishing history requires a concerted, well-managed effort.

 As many, including economist Jeffrey Sachs, Scott Horton (author of How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine) and many others have signaled, Blinken’s State Department categorically refused to discuss Putin’s formal request to analyze the root causes at a time when the war could have been avoided, in December 2021. Several months later, the Western allies of Ukraine instructed Ukraine to refuse an already negotiated and initial peace deal based on an examination of the root causes.

That would have left Ukraine intact, with the question of Crimea to be decided in an undefined future. But then, as now, our authorities and news services are seeking to uproot the very idea of root causes.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Our Devil Closes His Dictionary and Muses on Its Roots appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Diplomacy took on new meaning during the thirty-year reign of the State Department’s Queen Victoria. �մǻ岹��’s definition seeks to capture the essence of the concept that sits “at the center of” Biden’s, Blinken’s and Nuland’s foreign policy.

�մǻ岹��’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Diplomacy:

The practice of peremptorily giving instructions to ambassadors intended to relieve them of the embarrassing and time-consuming task of engaging in dialogue with foreign governments.

Contextual note

Ukraine’s modern history will be forever marked by an intercepted phone call between Nuland and the US ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt on February 4, 2014, 18 days before the coup d’état that overturned the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych. In it, Nuland provided the perfect demonstration of how diplomacy has come to resemble the art of dramaturgy. Whether Nuland herself wrote the script of the play, or whether she was the designated lead actor of a production funded and produced in Washington’s Beltway, we may never know.

We do know, however, that for the diplomats involved, it was more about playing rather than practicing the complex but boring ritual of constructive dialogue that in former times defined diplomacy. Postmodern diplomacy can be summed up in this idea: Don’t waste time talking; write the script and hire the actors.

Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt’s opening words in the conversation were: “I think we’re in play.” After this flourish, the two immediately embark on the equivalent of a director’s casting session for an upcoming Broadway production. It’s clear from their phone chat that they are preparing a new season of political theater in Ukraine. The program would include the turbulent drama of the Maidan coup quickly followed by a revolt by the ethnic Russians in the Donbas that quickly morphed into a civil war punctuated by ��ܲ�������’s invasion and annexation of Crimea.

The following season featured the two-act tragedy of the Minsk accords, whose delayed denouement, staged eight years later, revealed that the tragedy was actually designed as a pantomime, a comic interlude designed to fool the audience (mainly Russian) and allow Ukraine the time backstage to arm itself, thanks to the able assistance of NATO in the role of costume designer, props manager and wardrobe assistant.

Like so much in our postmodern civilization, theatrically managed, produced and promoted historical events efface reality. Events are scripted. Roles are assigned. The media sets itself up in the orchestra, playing their own role as a disciplined group of musicians reading from their score. Their own modest role is to set the rhythm and provide any incidental music required, scene by scene.

Though the great geopolitical dramas unfolding before our eyes make little sense and radically reduce the kind of human agency that might seek to resolve rather than produce crises, the public now expects these dramas. Thanks to the media’s presentation of them as logical — usually because of some identifiable diabolical presence — the public never questions the causes or seriously wonders about possible solutions. That is the nature of today’s political and geopolitical hyperreality. Diplomacy is the most obvious victim of the trend. 

Historical note

In former times, diplomats played a key role in defining historical reality. They invested energy and intelligence in the effort. They entertained the now passé belief that crises might find solutions through dialogue. Ambassadors and diplomats learned to ply the subtle art of managing relations between national governments. Their leaders defined the themes and the goals, but the diplomats had the responsibility for developing and managing the dialogue. �մǻ岹��’s diplomats, especially those certain of the financial and military might behind them, have been instructed to stage-manage an elaborate pre-scripted roleplay.

On the other hand, most of the world’s diplomats, who lack the financial or military clout have no choice but to learn to play their assigned role. Europe’s leaders as well as its diplomats have now accepted that reality. Their actions, and especially their lack of reactions, demonstrate that they see themselves as hired actors working for a professional production team in Washington that has all the right backers.

Some of Europe’s supporting actors — the ones who sport the prestigious title of president or prime minister — may at some point in their career have naively expected to enjoy a fleeting moment at center stage. But in recent years, they have all discovered the pattern at work. The director, according to his or her inspiration, has the power to write their role out of the script, leaving them simply visible as extras in a crowd scene. Or the production team may let them speak but require them to deliver their lines from the wings. Nuland made this relationship clear back in 2014, when weighing the factors at play as the coup was brewing, she , “and fuck the EU!”

Could any elected leader in a European democracy dare to say anything similar? German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande, leading players on their respective national stages, were probably convinced in their hearts of their noble diplomatic mission when sponsoring and promoting the Minsk accords between Russia and Ukraine. The result on paper had all the appearances of successful diplomacy in the traditional sense. But both of those leaders of Europe’s two most powerful nations admitted years later, after leaving office, that the Minsk agreements, to the people like Nuland in the production team, were nothing more than a ploy to gain time and facilitate Ukraine’s integration into NATO.

Merkel managed to be respected and admired for her control of some crucial situations within Germany and Europe. Her successor Olaf Scholz silently watched his role and his nation’s economy reduced to that of an afterthought when the American production team decided that he was too fond of the cheap Russian gas required to make his industry competitive. That scene highlighting Germany’s powerful economy had, in the meantime, been written out of the script.

But not all are so self-effacing as Scholz. French President Emmanuel Macron, sure of his talent, last week decided to turn his assigned role as Rosencranz or Guildenstern on alternative nights into that of Julius Caesar, as he unexpectedly marched forward, stage right, to deliver an improvised soliloquy. He was apparently unaware that the play’s setting happens to be Elsinore, not Rome, situated squarely in the state of Denmark, where the true hero of play knew that something smelled increasingly rotten.

Blinken’s panegyric of the departing Nuland celebrates “Toria’s leadership on Ukraine that diplomats and students of foreign policy will study for years to come.” Indeed, students wishing to understand the slow but certain degradation of diplomacy and the creeping paralysis of US foreign policy will be attentive to every aspect of her role in the Ukraine fiasco, whose history is yet to be written. The most astute commentators are suggesting that her departure signals the acceptance in the Beltway of the imminent abandonment of Nuland’s disastrous policies.

Blinken looks forward to “the day when [Ukraine] will be able to stand strongly on its own feet — democratically, economically, and militarily.” John Mearsheimer believes that as a result of Nuland’s policies, it is likely to become little more than a “dysfunctional rump state.”

Responsible Statecraft’s Daniel Larison an unnamed European official’s summary of Nuland’s “leadership” that so impressed Blinken. “She doesn’t engage like most diplomats. She comes off as rather ideological.” Larson adds this pertinent comment: “It is a measure of how little diplomatic skills are prized in U.S. foreign policy that Nuland flourished for such a long time in Washington.”

Her time is over. The question remains: Is Washington’s grip on Ukraine that she so personally tightened over? Joe Biden desperately wants to avoid a repeat of his chaotic exit from Afghanistan in 2021. That may explain why he needs $61 billion more to maintain the suspense at least until November’s election.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Who Scripted the New Queen Victoria’s Tragic Exit? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Once that brief period was over, the violence and destruction became so extreme and persistent that a literally burning question emerged in the form of speculation about whether there might be another one, hopefully of longer duration and — why not? — the prospect of a resolution of the conflict.

Hamas put together a plan that for a few days last week appeared to have some chance of success. US diplomats, led by both Antony Blinken and CIA Director William Burns, appeared to be assiduously mobilizing interested parties in the region to provoke a negotiated version of the proposal. The problem was that the warring sides — Israel and Hamas — had fundamental objections to what the other side was proposing. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu simply the proposal “delusional.”

Just as in the case of the Ukraine war, where the two warring parties — Russia and Ukraine — were joined in the fray by a third, non-combatant but thoroughly engaged party located thousands of kilometers away in Washington, the role of the third party was likely to be pivotal. Thanks to the testimony of multiple players in the negotiation round that took place in March 2022 between Ukraine and Russia, we now know that the third party, represented by its messenger British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, stepped in to make the decision to scotch an agreement that had been thrashed out and even initialed by the Russian and Ukrainian negotiators.

The Gaza situation contrasts with Ukraine in one significant way. The third party, again the US, appears to be promoting negotiations instead of seeking to prevent them from taking place. But rather than interfere in the decision-making and dictate the outcome, as Johnson did in Ukraine, the US has preferred the less engaged role of offering friendly advice rather than laying down the law. This attitude appeared in a The New York Times article US Secretary of State Tony Blinken’s reading of the situation. “It will be up to Israelis to decide what they want to do, when they want to do it, how they want to do it.”&�Բ�����;

The article added this significant comment. “Shortly after that, Mr. Blinken delivered his own, much more measured, assessment of the Hamas offer at a news conference in Jerusalem, saying that while it had ‘clear nonstarters,’ it also left space for an agreement to be reached.”

�մǻ岹��’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Clear non-starter:

The statement of a position whose rhetoric not only dispenses from the obligation to explore solutions through negotiation to avoid the effects of war but also limpidly explains the aptitude of the US government to justify the pursuance of genocide. 

Contextual note

A year ago our Devil’s Dictionary defined the term “non-starter” as used by Tony Blinken in the runup to ��ܲ�������’s invasion of Ukraine. The Secretary of State felt it necessary to explain why he felt it was useless to negotiate with Russia if the only trivial goal of such negotiations might be avoiding a war. The war, as we all know, not only was not avoided but has been prolonged, leading to an estimated death toll of 500,000 Ukrainians, whose interests the US claimed to be representing when it opposed negotiations.

Here is our definition of “non-starter” a year ago:

“A convenient term of dismissal of an adversary’s negotiating position as a reason to avoid engaging in negotiating. A particularly useful technique for anyone who seeks to aggravate a problem rather than solve it.”

The language adopted by the US State Department should not only surprise, but startle, anyone familiar with the traditions, rules and laws of diplomacy and more broadly in conflict resolution. In instances of hostage-taking, for example, negotiation is the required procedure. It has the status of what German philosopher Immanuel Kant would a categorical imperative: “an objective, rationally necessary and unconditional principle that we must follow despite any natural desires we may have to the contrary.” police department on the face of the earth knows that, at least in so-called enlightened democracies.

Israel clearly does not follow the rules of enlightened democratic police departments. It has notoriously formulated a military tactic called “the Hannibal Directive.” In the of former senior US defense official and ambassador Chas Freeman this doctrine “basically says that rather than get into bargaining over a hostage exchange, you should just kill the Israeli hostages along with their captors.”

Tony Blinken’s repeated insistence on refusing to negotiate to avoid or resolve a conflict because of the subjective perception that an announced position is a “non-starter” can legitimately be compared to the Hannibal Directive. It says, “If we don’t like what you’re suggesting, we prefer seeing the situation worsen, but in all cases, we refuse to consider your point of view, even in the hope of modifying it.”&�Բ�����;

Historical note

Future historians will most likely note that Washington’s qualification of ��ܲ�������’s proposals for negotiations in December 2021 as a “non-starter” made ��ܲ�������’s invasion two months later more likely, if not inevitable. That doesn’t remove responsibility from Russia for the invasion, but it clearly implicates the US, who cannot pretend to be an innocent observer. The “non-starting” position of the US is a key element in the reasoning that led international relations expert John Mearsheimer to that the US was directly responsible for the war.

Historians will also note that the same logic that consisted of refusing negotiations in December 2021, prior to the invasion, applied three months later. There was a slight difference, however. In March 2022, negotiations had not only “started” without the US intervening to abort them; the two warring parties had reached what appeared to be an acceptable conclusion for both. At that point, the new diplomatic logic that gave us the term “non-starter” seemed to generate a new idea: non-finisher. Boris Johnson’s instructions to pursue the war and his promise of Western backing ended any hope of a lasting or even temporary peace.

The real tragedy here goes beyond the unspeakable human, political and geopolitical catastrophe visited upon Ukraine over the past two years and more recently on Gaza, with no end in sight for either conflict. A nation and a people’s homeland are being reduced to a in Ukraine and, according to some, a in Gaza.

The more general problem, the one that has made these recent wars possible, is the failure of diplomatic ideas and language. The retired French diplomat, Gérard Araud, published an entire book on the history of that decline and transformation in 2022,. His respect for language appears in the book’s title itself, where he plays on words, since histoire in French means both “history” and “story.” Araud tells multiple stories that define the history of diplomacy and trace its current decline.

In his concluding chapters, Araud explains that “in every conflict both parties are intimately convinced they are ‘right’ or acting within their rights. History,” he writes, “is a cemetery of lost causes that nevertheless represented the ‘right thing to do’ (“le bon droit”) or, to use a related bromide in contemporary English, ‘being on the right side of history.’”

When the language of diplomacy becomes indistinguishable from the language of propaganda, we enter into a world of forever wars. History generates its own organic laws that rarely conform to the kinds of abstract principles that enable a faux diplomat to invoke “non-starters.”

I’ll finish with another quote from Araud’s book. “History is a far more powerful force than all the virtuous sentiments or mercantile interests in the determination of a foreign policy.”

Refusing to listen to history is the ultimate “non-starter.”

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post A Postmortem on the Language and Reality of Diplomacy appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Breakdown of the US’s ability to talk to and think about China

Under Presidents George W Bush, Barack Obama and, partly, Donald Trump, the US had institutionalized large-scale communications with China, especially through the strategic economic dialogue (Bush), strategic and economic dialogue (Obama), and comprehensive economic dialogue (Trump). Dozens of senior officials regularly met. Those dialogues could not resolve the great issues like Taiwan or intellectual property, but officials came to understand each other and render differences manageable.

When Donald Trump became President, Xi Jinping was determined to keep communications open and relations constructive. Chinese scholars say the lavish welcome Trump was given was historically exceptional.

As with other relationships, Trump responded initially with admiration: “President Xi is a brilliant man. If you went all over Hollywood to look for somebody to play the role of President Xi, you couldn’t find it. There’s nobody like that. The look, the brain, the whole thing.” Likewise, at Davos in 2020: “Our relationship with China has now probably never, ever been better … He’s for China, I’m for the US but, other than that, we love each other.” But Trump’s mood changed and the dialogue lapsed. Biden chose to permanently abandon institutionalized dialogue permanently. Blinken’s trip marginally walks back that decision and marginally walks back the coldness Blinken deliberately instilled at his initial meeting with the Chinese in Anchorage.

US Presidents traditionally ensure the presence of some cabinet-level officials with expertise and experience on the most vital national security issue of the time, once the Soviet Union and now China. No Cold War president would have been without the top-level expertise brought to the task by a Kissinger, Brzezinski or Scowcroft.

George W. Bush was a foreign policy failure in many respects but, guided by Hank Paulsen in the Treasury and brilliant CIA China expert Dennis Wilder in the National Security Council (NSC), he balanced his strong support for Taiwan’s security with strong support for the 1970s peace agreements and ended up admired by both Taipei and Beijing.

Obama ended the tradition of having cabinet-level China expertise. Trump followed suit. Biden has been exceptionally striking in declaring that China is America’s ultimate foreign policy threat but hiring no top-level expertise on China. His Secretary of State, National Security Advisor and CIA Director spent their careers on the Middle East and Europe; his Secretary of Defense on the Middle East. Even Biden’s ambassador to China is a career Middle East and Europe official. His NSC Asia czar has no direct experience with China and became famous for demanding disengagement based on the false assertion that US engagement with China presumed engagement would democratize China.  

Some of these officials, like CIA Director William J Burns, are outstanding and have deployed their European expertise to resist Russian aggression. Regarding China, though, it is another story. Imagine the CEO of a giant food company announcing that cereals constitute the greatest opportunity and the greatest competitive threat, then announcing that the heads of the Wheaties division, the Cheerios division, the oatmeal division and all others would be hamburger experts.

Below the leadership level, things are even worse. Intelligence and Defense Department officials say that it has become so difficult for anyone with China expertise and experience to get security clearance that the US has partially blinded itself. Scholars and business executives who bridge the two countries are frightened, and vast numbers are considering departure to China. Some visiting Chinese professors, including two of the most pro-American international relations scholars and one invited personally by Jimmy Carter, have been treated very badly by US immigration authorities.

In short, Biden has continued and worsened the Trump disjunction between strategic imperatives and leadership skills, the Trump contempt for expertise and the Trump (late, partial, possibly temporary) dismissal of institutionalized dialogue. No weekend trip can ameliorate these fundamental realities.

The US fumes against China because it no longer understands it

Magnifying the consequences is a vital difference between Trump and Biden. Trump always sought the deal, albeit a misconceived deal: The trade war was about trade disparities, and if Beijing took specific actions, the trade war would proportionately ease. Biden proposes no deal, just escalated sanctions.

Given the overwhelming evidence that steel and aluminum tariffs hurt the US more than China, raise prices and cost many tens of thousands of US jobs, most economists assumed that the President whose slogan is “a foreign policy for the middle class” would lift them. But, no: US Trade Representative Katherine Tai says they are necessary to maintain “leverage” over China. There is of course no leverage from policies that damage America more than China.

The Biden administration has totally repudiated the peace compromise so successfully negotiated by Kissinger and Brzezinski.

Lacking expertise, Washington frequently seems clueless about how the world views its China policies. For instance, Blinken and Biden often broadcast versions of Biden’s June 9 statement that China’s Belt and Road Initiative is a “debt and confiscation program.” Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo  Belt & Road similarly. Developing world leaders, who frequently contrast China’s development offers with Washington’s lectures or its omnipresent Special Forces teams, know that is false. Every China specialist knows the study of 1100 Chinese loans that found there was not a single instance of China using debt problems to seize collateral.

Does the US President have no idea what he is talking about, or is he systematically spreading disinformation? Either way, developing countries can dismiss much of US policy. For instance, many give credence to the argument that the problem in both Europe and Asia is US efforts to encircle and destabilize its adversaries. Hence, all of Latin America, Africa and the Middle East align with China regarding US sanctions on Russia.

The big problem is Taiwan. Henry Kissinger warns that we are sliding toward war over Taiwan. The Biden administration has totally repudiated the peace compromise so successfully negotiated by Kissinger and Brzezinski. Washington promised to abstain from official relations or an alliance with Taiwan. But President Biden has promised four times to defend Taiwan; that is an alliance.

Speaker Pelosi was emphatic that her August trip to Taipei was an “official” trip; immediately after her meeting with President Tsai, the presidential spokeswoman went on island-wide TV and proclaimed, “We are a sovereign and independent country.”

Responding to lesser provocations, George W Bush, his secretary of state, and his deputy secretary of state, no panda-hugging liberals, distanced the US and warned Taipei to stop. Instead, Secretary Blinken continues to welcome such official relations and tell the Chinese not to “overreact.”&�Բ�����;

The angry popular reaction inside China to Xi’s failure to respond decisively to such US initiatives is the one risk that could topple Xi Jinping from power. Concern about that is the one thing that could trigger him to launch a direct attack on Taiwan.

Biden has no senior advisor who understands such things. Blinken and Sullivan act on how they believe theoretically China should react, not on knowledge of actual Chinese politics.

If war comes, it will not be the limited conflict of US war games. China will hit Okinawa immediately or lose. The US will hit mainland Chinese bases immediately or lose. China will respond against the US.

The common denominator of Trump’s MAGA policies, Biden’s MAGA-plus policies, and Representative ultra-MAGA policies is a repudiation of the promises and norms the US accepted when Nixon, Carter, Mao and Deng compromised to eliminate what had been a terrible risk of conflict over Taiwan.

The cover for that repudiation is an endless repetition of the assertion that China is planning an invasion of Taiwan, an assertion for which the US intelligence community says there is no evidence.

The fact of the matter is that Washington’s hard left and the hard right always despised compromise. The pragmatic center has evaporated, for domestic reasons, and the self-righteous ideologues rule Congress. No quick visit, no fog of diplomatic niceties will arrest the resultant reversion to the pre-1972 risk of war.

(China took an equally dangerous turn, also for domestic reasons. Hong Kong, Xinjiang, Canadian hostages, economic war on Australia, and much else are serious issues. But this article is about the US; previous US administrations handled middle-sized issues without sliding toward war.)

Biden was elected by the pragmatic center, but he has no China team, no China policy, no strategic vision. He should be wary of taking even a small risk that history will remember him for the first inadvertent world war of choice. Weekend trips for marginal changes of tone do not address the problem.

[ first published this piece.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Sending Blinken to China Won’t Interrupt the Slide Toward War appeared first on 51�Թ�.

The Irony of the UNGA Vote

The war in Ukraine was the highlight of 2022. Notably, the West united against the Russian invasion. Led by the US, it placed crippling sanctions on the Kremlin, cut energy imports from Russia, and sent military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. to Ukraine and President Joe Biden signed off on an additional $47 billion in assistance. 

The US action against Russia is not new. In 2014, Russia took over Crimea. In response, the US led the effort to eject Russia from the United Nations Human Rights Council (), to censure the country in the UN General Assembly (), and to suspend it from the Group of Eight ().

Palestine and Israel: A Bloody Saga

In the words of US Secretary of State , the US stands for the “defense of the UN Charter and in resolute opposition to ��ܲ�������’s devastating war of aggression against Ukraine and its people.” In addition to actions against Russia, the US has issued sanctions on Iran for supplying military drones to Russian troops. These are allegedly for surveillance of and then attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

Is the UN Charter absolute or subject to the selective judgment of the US? Is all aggression against any innocent civilians culpable, or does it apply just to the Russian invasion of Ukraine? The answer to this question was made abundantly evident on the penultimate day of 2022.

The UNGA on a resolution that asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to opine about the “legal consequences of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.” To put this context, Israel colonizes swathes of Palestinian land beyond the borders established under the. Since the, this illegal occupation also includes Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank. The UNGA resolution with 87 to 26 votes with 53 abstentions. 

Unsurprisingly, the states opposing the resolution were the US and the UK: the flag-bearers of justice for Ukraine. They supported Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for dragging Russia to the ICJ. This hypocrisy of the West is a historic phenomenon.

The Dualism of Western Justice

Last month, US House Representatives Steve Cohen and Joe Wilson a bipartisan congressional resolution “call[ing] on President Joe Biden to boot Russia from the United Nations Security Council ()” for its“” of the UN Charter. Those violations include ��ܲ�������’s “illegal annexation vote in four Ukrainian oblasts [and] perpetuating atrocities” against civilians in Ukraine. While the expulsion proceedings of a permanent member of the UNSC are both obscure and, frankly, unrealistic without Russian consent, this scenario is spectacularly ironic given the UNSC’s seeming apathy towards Palestine.

The Roots of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

For historical context, in November 1967, the members of the UNSC voted unanimously for, calling on Israel to withdraw from the annexed territories seized in the. Yet 55 years later, Israel not only continues to violate the resolution, it also proceeds to expand settlements on expropriated Palestinian land with impunity. In the last five decades, the Israeli regime has demolished over Palestinian homes in the occupied territory. Israel also spawned more than settlements and outposts in this territory, leading to 600,000-750,000 moving into the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Often these settlers unleash violence on their Palestinian neighbors. This violence has never ceased and the West maintains a deafening silence.

The American opposition to Israeli settlements has always been rhetorical at best. The US officials have often maintained a programmed PR narrative of�����������’s to defend itself.” The Palestinians do not have a state and lack a functioning military. They are powerless and are being squeezed out of their homes. The question arises: from whom is Israel defending itself—children?

According to the World Health Organisation (), Israeli aggression in Gaza displaced more than Palestinians, including 7,000 children without a roof, scant food supplies, and virtually no access to medical assistance. The WHO also reported the decimation of in Gaza due to Israeli airstrikes. Yet, annualized military aid to the tune of continues to flow to Israel from the US.

According to the data from the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (), a total of have been killed in Ukraine by Russian barbarity. Apartment blocks have been razed mercilessly and the electricity grid battered to the brink of collapse. The US has termed it a“” assault on humanity, and Biden even called it a“.” In May 2021, the OHCHR reported that the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip killed242 Palestinians, including . However, Biden supported Israel instead of holding them to account for their war crimes.

Rebalancing the Power Asymmetry Between Israel and Palestine

In fact, Biden praised the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—Biden’s proclaimed “” and architect of the 11-day war in 2021—on forming the government. In the same breath, Biden conspicuously ignores concerns regarding Netanyahu including far-right racist politicians in his cabinet. Note that Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has openly proclaimed Jewish supremacy in the past and argued for expulsion of indigenous Palestinians from Israel.  

Puritan US Is Not So Pure

History is riddled with American moral and political duplicity. For example, the US acquiesced to the1982 Israeli invasion of , which galvanized the Shiite Islamist group. The US the 1982 UNSC resolution—one of its time and again used to shield Israel from global denunciation—calling for an immediate Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon. An 49,600 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians died during the occupation. 

Over the years, the US has supported Israel regardless of whether Republicans or Democrats were in office. In fact, each successive American regime sets new records of cant and hypocrisy, as if trying to remind us of its duplicity and dishonesty.

Beirut Explosion One Year On: Are Israel and Hezbollah Responsible?

American military  interventions tend to be unjust like the Israeli ones. The US supported the Afghan mujahideen blindly against the Soviet Union. This led to the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The US invaded Iraq on the utterly bogus canard of Saddam Hussein possessing weapons of mass destruction. Between 2003 and 2006, the US-led assault resulted in over Iraqi civilian casualties, primarily due to the indiscriminate aerial bombardment of Iraqi towns and cities by the US. After the war, the American policy of dismantling all Iraqi administration provided a fertile breeding ground for radical offshoots of Al-Qaeda, the most radical of which was the Islamic State. 

How can the US still enjoy a moral high ground when its historical scroll stands emblazoned with unilateral aggression, illegal intervention and unabashed obstruction of justice against its genocidal allies? The answer: it cannot and it does not.

The US has one set of principles for Ukraine and another for Palestine. This may be because of race, religion, interests, interest groups or geopolitics. Yet this dualism demonstrates that the puritanical US is far from pure and the Global South can no longer rely on the world policeman.
[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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In an article published on the day of ��ܲ�������’s invasion of Ukraine, CBS News up journalist Norah O’Donnell’s conversation with the top foreign policy official in the US in these words: “Secretary of State Antony Blinken said it is obvious Russian President Vladimir Putin has goals beyond Ukraine and may have other countries in his sights.”

�մǻ岹��’s Weekly Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Obvious:

Possibly true, maybe even unlikely, but what the speaker hopes people will believe is true

Contextual note

With everyone in government and the media speculating about — rather than thinking through — the real reasons behind the Russian assault on Ukraine, CBS News, like most of US legacy media, wants its readers to focus on the most extreme hypothesis. That is the gift any war offers to the media: the possibility of not just imagining but supposing the worst.

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It works because the idea that Vladimir Putin has designs that go beyond Ukraine is certainly credible. But it has no basis in fact. In wartime, the media, even more than politicians, will always do their damnedest to damn beyond redemption the party designated as the enemy. One crime is never enough. The public must be encouraged to believe that other, more serious crimes are in the offing. That will incite the audience to return for more.

The article is about Antony Blinken’s understanding of the conflict, but he never used the word “obvious.” Instead, he speculated out loud about what an evil dictator might be thinking. “He’s made clear,” Blinken asserted without citing evidence, “that he’d like to reconstitute the Soviet empire.” He then shifts to a less extreme interpretation. “Short of that,” Blinken continues, “he’d like to reassert a sphere of influence around neighboring countries that were once part of the Soviet bloc.” And he ends with what is a perfectly reasonable assumption: “And short of that, he’d like to make sure that all of these countries are somehow neutral.”&�Բ�����;     

Blinken’s contention that Putin’s “made clear” his intention to restore the Soviet empire undoubtedly prompted CBS’ choice of the word “obvious,” which is a bold exaggeration. But Blinken is exaggerating when he claims it’s “clear.” Something is clear if it is visible, with no obstacle that prevents us from seeing it. In this case, clarity would exist if Putin had ever expressed that intention. But that has never happened. So, what Blinken claims to be clear is mere suspicion.

Blinken cleverly evokes “the Soviet empire” that he is convinced Putin wants to restore. The Soviet Union was a communist dictatorship, the ideological enemy of the United States. But Putin is an oligarchic capitalist who inherited a Russia whose economy was transformed by American consultants after the fall of the Soviet Union. Blinken knows that Americans are horrified by any association with communism and quasi-religiously “believe in” capitalism, even oligarchic capitalism, since the US has produced its own version of that. Blinken’s statement can therefore be read as clever State Department propaganda. He designed it to evoke emotions that are inappropriate to the actual context.

Things become linguistically more interesting when Blinken goes on to offer a softer reading of Putin’s intention, introduced by “short of that.” He descends the ladder of horror by moving from “empire” to “sphere of influence.” It is far less fear-inspiring, but he continues to evoke the communist threat by alluding to “countries that were once part of the Soviet bloc.”&�Բ�����;

The next step down the ladder, again introduced by “short of that,” reads like a puzzling anti-climax. “And short of that,” Blinken says, “he’d like to make sure that all of these countries are somehow neutral.” Is he suggesting that the neutrality of surrounding nations is the equivalent of reconstituting the Soviet Union? If they are truly neutral, like Switzerland or Finland, they belong to no bloc. Blinken apparently wants the undiscerning listener to assume that being neutral is just a lighter, perhaps less constraining version of being part of a new Soviet empire.

This kind of speculation based on mental reflexes acquired during the Cold War may seem odd for another reason. Blinken was speaking at the very moment when actual hostilities were breaking out. In the previous weeks, discussions between the two sides had taken place, which meant they could continue. Things changed, of course, at the beginning of last week when Putin , “I deem it necessary to make a decision that should have been made a long time ago — to immediately recognize the independence and sovereignty of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic.”

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That statement on February 21 should have created a new sense of urgency in Washington to prevent the worst from happening by precipitating new negotiations. The opposite happened. ��ܲ�������’s overtures calling for a summit were refused and Blinken’s planned meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was canceled.

The West and indeed the world were legitimately shocked by Putin’s move. It violated a basic principle of international law and contradicted the terms of the Minsk agreement that looked forward to defining the future autonomy of Donetsk and Luhansk. On that score, Putin was not wrong when he noted that the definition and application of that autonomy should have taken place much earlier, indeed, “a long time ago.”

What Blinken described corresponds to an imaginary negotiation with Putin, who may have adopted a strategy of beginning with an extreme position by demanding a return to a post-Yalta order in Eastern Europe. Negotiators typically exaggerate at the beginning, proposing what they never expect to achieve, to arrive at something that will be deemed acceptable. It’s called giving ground. Blinken’s first “short of that” anticipates what Putin might do once the extreme position is rejected. His second “short of that” tells us what Blinken imagines Putin’s next concession might be. That takes him to the neutrality hypothesis, which in fact, as everyone knows, was Putin’s red line. 

If Blinken can imagine that kind of negotiating process, why didn’t he choose to engage in it? The answer lies in his implicit assessment of the idea of neutrality. Neutrality is not an option. It confirms what many suspect: the US adheres to a confrontational model of international relations. It is the George W. Bush doctrine: if you are not with us, you are against us. That applies even to neutral countries.

The CBS article contains some other interesting curiosities. After explaining exactly what Putin is secretly thinking, at one point, Blinken objects: “I can’t begin to get into his head.” When queried about what the intelligence community has provided to Blinken to justify what he says he thinks is in Putin’s head, he replies, “You don’t need intelligence to tell you that that’s exactly what President Putin wants.” Blinken wants us to believe that he understands everything but knows nothing.

Historical Note

Could it be that in this age of social media, where everyone lives comfortably in their silo, we have heard the death knell of even the idea of negotiation, a practice that has been respected in international relations throughout human history? Or is it an effect of historically informed cynicism due to the fact that, in many cases, negotiations have failed to prevent the unthinkable? Everyone remembers Neville Chamberlain’s negotiation with Adolf Hitler in 1938 that seemed to succeed until it became clear that it had failed.

Or is it just a US phenomenon? Emmanuel Macron of France and Olaf Scholz of Germany made last-minute attempts to negotiate with Vladimir Putin, but they lacked the authority of the US. 

In recent decades, US culture appears to have created a kind of reflex that consists of refusing to enter into dialogue whenever one has the feeling that the other party doesn’t share the same ideas or opinions. This aversion to sitting down and sorting out major problems may be an indirect consequence of the wokeness wars, which inevitably lead to the conclusion that the other side will always be unenlightened and incorrigible. Discussion serves no purpose, especially since those committed to a fixed position live in fear of hearing something that might modulate their enthusiasm.

�մǻ岹��’s confrontational culture in the US reveals that Americans are now more interested in making a display of their moral indignation at people who look, think or act differently than they are in trying to understand, let alone iron out their differences. In the past, John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev solved major problems through dialogue. Ronald Reagan and Leonid Brezhnev talked , as did Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. And then there was the extraordinary case of Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong.

We are now in the age of . Even our political leaders have identified with that culture.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The 51�Թ� Devil’s Dictionary.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The Contradictory Musings of Biden’s Speculator of State appeared first on 51�Թ�.

�մǻ岹��’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Distinction:

Blind obedience, which, according to the place and time, may turn out to be obedience to strategically blind politicians

Contextual Note

The idea of “distinction” derives from the notion that some people achieve a status that distinguishes them from their peers, placing them on a superior level. The expression “serve with distinction” in the armed forces is a time-honored cliché, whose meaning no one questions. Any individual who accepts the conditions of military service that imply the risk of losing one’s life at any given point in time automatically earns the right to be “distinguished” from the rest of humanity. Ordinary people do everything in their daily lives to reduce or eliminate risk, especially direct risks to their survival or well-being. The instinct for survival makes all humans indistinguishable. Those who engage in actions that may compromise their survival are clearly distinguished from the rest of humanity.

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Not all service personnel are exposed to battleground conditions. Some, exercising specialized tasks, never encounter them. But all members of the military implicitly accept to participate in operations commanded by their superiors with the knowledge that their survival may be in play.

Khalilzad predictably trots out the cliché but then extends it by adding “sacrifice” to “distinction.” Some may see this as unintentionally ironic. This could include Lieutenant Colonel Stu Scheller, who has vociferously for accountability by military and political leaders. Over a span of 20 years, urged on by the Pentagon, three US presidents have sent their citizens abroad as sacrificial victims to the god of war they honored, if not worshipped. The belief that Ares, Mars or Týr — or indeed a god of war by any name — might require the ritual of animal sacrifice, let alone human sacrifice, would be universally mocked today. But Khalilzad reminds us that the tradition has survived in our patriotic values.

NBC’s distinguished Middle East correspondent, , thinks the sacrifice should be continued. “Who is going to go in now?” he asks. What power is going to go in and undo them?” Like many Americans, Engel criticizes President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan. That country now finds itself under the control of what Engel persists in calling “the enemy.” If the war is over, the notion of enemy should disappear, even if a renewal of the state of war remains possible.

The Taliban seem to have understood that. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid to the US to develop peaceful relations. “We have communication channels with them,” he explained, “and we expect them to reopen their embassy in Kabul and we also want to have trade relations with them.”

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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken welcomed the safety that cooperation has provided, but he appeared uncommitted to exploring the development of peaceful relations between the two nations. He saw no need for an embassy in Kabul. “For the time being,” he explained, “we will use this post in Doha to manage our diplomacy with Afghanistan, including consular affairs, administering humanitarian assistance, and working with allies, partners, and regional and international stakeholders to coordinate our engagement and messaging to the Taliban.”&�Բ�����;

According to Blinken, the US will politely discuss with the Taliban from afar the time it takes to evacuate those still stranded in the country whom the US believes deserve evacuation. Once that is accomplished, the US will most likely apply the opposite of the Taliban’s wish to see a US embassy in Kabul and new trade relations. The more predictable course of action, similar to the one applied to Cuba for the past 60 years, would be an aggravated economic war consisting of sanctions and blockades.

In fact, the campaign to starve Afghanistan has already begun. The United Nations that emergency food reserves are likely to run out within a month and that “starvation could soon compound the humanitarian crisis convulsing Afghanistan.” At the same time, The New York Times that “Washington has frozen Afghan government reserves, and the International Monetary Fund has blocked its access to emergency reserves.“

Historical Note

In a different tweet, Zalmay Khalilzad affirmed that the Taliban were now facing what he called “a test” and then two rhetorical questions. “Can they lead their country to a safe & prosperous future where all their citizens, men & women, have the chance to reach their potential?” was his first question. This seems reasonable enough, given the promises the Taliban have made to be more open than in the past to normalized international relations and human rights. Reasonable leaders in a reasonable world should encourage them to prove their capacity to honor their own promises. But Khalilzad’s second question reveals how hollowly rhetorical the first one was. “Can Afghanistan,” he asks, “present the beauty & power of its diverse cultures, histories, & traditions to the world?”

That is so obviously distant from even an enlightened Taliban policy that asking it can only be seen as hypocrisy. Khalilzad clearly anticipates blaming them for their failure to live up to Western ideals. This is designed to serve as a pretext for a future campaign to punish the impudent Taliban for winning a war not just against Americans — the Vietnamese had already done that — but against NATO and the entire “rules-based” coalition of nations that followed the US into the quagmire of Afghanistan.

The campaign by corporate US media to humiliate and eventually add to the suffering of a Taliban-run Afghanistan has already begun. In the same interview cited above, Richard Engel follows up his implicit appeal to a brave nation other than the US to take over the task abandoned by the Americans (“to go in and undo them”) with an observation that sits oddly with his acknowledgment of the definitive American retreat.

“It will be a challenge,” Engel tells his American audience, “to bring the Taliban into the international community. But that is the challenge that is facing us for the sake of the Afghan people.” He doesn’t explain who the “us” is who are now faced with the challenge. Is it the US, its traditional allies (Europe, Israel and the Gulf countries), or perhaps the entire human race, who he assumes adheres to the values promulgated by the US?

His question is nevertheless intriguing. To the extent that Engel supposes that the US should be the one “to bring the Taliban into the international community,” two opposing policies are worth considering. For simplicity’s sake, let’s call them the carrot and the stick. The carrot would be to let 20 years of bygones be bygones and respond to the Taliban’s overture by saying: Yes, let’s push cooperation to the hilt and make something out of our past mistakes.

The stick would be to stoke a rapid deterioration of economic and social conditions while offering clandestine support to any and all forces of opposition within Afghanistan — the policy the US pursued under Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, aimed at overthrowing an independent, socialist-leaning government that they feared would be magnetically attracted to the Soviet Union. The allies the US cultivated in the 1980s were the mujahadeen, whom the US trained in the fine art of what is deemed “good” terrorism, designed to destabilize unfriendly governments.

Engel ends his analysis by comparing the Taliban-run Afghanistan to a “hole in the map” of the region. He expresses his belief that the sudden absence of US troops will “suck in other countries around it” into what he calls a “vortex” of instability. The consequences of the US retreat for Pakistan and India are difficult to measure, to say nothing of the virtual alliance between Israel and the Sunni monarchies of the Gulf, who counted on an abiding US military presence to continue their aggressive opposition to Iran. In any case, it is likely that the future will see less distinction but continued sacrifice.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on 51�Թ�.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The US Tries to Make a Fine Distinction in Afghanistan appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Is Israel an Apartheid State?

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What has emerged from Blinken’s visit for Americans is a “mission accomplished” feeling. The US will now be able to write the entire event off as insignificant and return to their normal activities. These include arguing about how much not to spend on infrastructure, discovering the truth about UFOs or getting vaccinated so that people can start partying again as summer approaches. Hamas has been disarmed. The disaster in the Holy Land has been avoided.

The problem for any serious observer is that their comforting discourse is in total dissonance with the historical context. The media across the globe have noticed that for the Biden administration, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a low priority, an unwanted distraction from the real business of the hour: creating a positive image for the recently elected president, young in the office (a mere 125 days) but old in years and inevitably stale in his thinking.

What does all this tell us about President Joe Biden’s policy with regard to Israeli-Palestinian relations? Some have hinted that, under pressure from progressives and some centrist Democrats, the Biden administration might consider modifying its ever-forgiving relationship with Israel by, for the first time, imposing conditions on the generous military aid the US provides year after year. No trace of that pressure appeared in Blinken’s discourse. Instead, the policy he hints at sounds like an anemic version of the Trump-Kushner peace plan. Biden talks about achieving stability by encouraging trade and investment. This essentially means the US will release enough cash for the rebuilding required for the Palestinians to function minimally within the Israeli economy.

In his meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, Blinken a gift of $360 million, not quite half of the of $735 million in supplementary military aid to Israel the Biden administration requested earlier this month and which some Democrats in Congress are currently contesting. Despite meetings with leaders in Egypt and Jordan, there is no indication that Washington may seek to address the historical causes of a never-ending series of conflicts. That will be left to others. Blinken summed up his intention in these words: “The United States will work to rally international support.”

�մǻ岹��’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Rally:

Incite a group of people and, in extreme cases, a mob to back or participate in a project that may or may not be in their interest but which reflects the goals and interests of the one who incites

Contextual Note

The style section of The New York Times features an about a high school student named Adrian in California who, on May 17, produced a flyer to invite kids from his school to an open beach party for his 17^th birthday. A friend spread the invitation to Snapchat and TikTok, whose “For You” algorithm turned it into a national event. Thousands of people responded and arranged to travel to Huntington Beach to be part of the event. The response ballooned uncontrollably, leading the two young friends to seek a willing commercial partner and turn it into an organized, paying event in Los Angeles, simply to avoid being accused of provoking a riot. It ended with a fracas on the beach, clashes with the police and hundreds of unhappy customers when no party materialized in Los Angeles. It did, however, instantly turn Adrian into an internet influencer.

Adrian now understands what it means to rally his contemporaries and indeed how easy it is to do it with the right plan. The Biden-Blinken plan to rally international support not only seems more modest and vague than Adrian’s, but it is far less likely to succeed. Blinken’s promise contains the principal themes of the discredited Trump-Kushner plan, without the ambition. The countries he appears to be rallying are either part of last year’s Abraham Accords initiated by Donald Trump or sympathetic to its goals. They essentially consist of Israel’s neighbors to the south: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt.

The Trump-Kushner plans rallied these nations around the idea of collaborating with Israel to create a prosperous business zone in the Middle East. It promised to turn the Occupied Palestinian Territories into a prosperous tourist attraction, allowing it to participate in the kind of glitzy commercial culture that has triumphed in Dubai and provided a model for Neom, Saudi Arabia’s futuristic city in the desert. Jared Kushner and friends imagined that Gaza could become one giant beach resort like Waikiki, Acapulco or Cancun.

Historical Note

This may be what was at the back of Antony Blinken’s mind when he proposed to “promote economic stability and progress in the West Bank and Gaza, more opportunity, to strengthen the private sector, expand trade and investment, all of which are essential to growing opportunity across the board.” The underlying logic is the same as the Trump-Kushner peace plan, once touted as the “deal of the century,” a game-changer destined to transform the economy of the Middle East, consolidate an objective alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia and isolate Iran. For historical and cultural reasons that should have been obvious to anyone familiar with the region, no one apart from the ruling class of those Middle Eastern countries took the plan seriously. Even they did so mainly out of diplomatic politeness toward Donald Trump and deference to the always redoubtable economic and military might of the US.

The difference between the Trump-Kushner plan and Blinken’s vague proposal is that in the first case, the cash would be counted in billions. Most of it would have been provided by the Saudis, allowing them to gain cultural control over the Palestinians. The Palestinians would inevitably be beholden to the Israeli-Saudi alliance’s money and technology on the simple condition that they humbly accept their supporting role in an economy designed to further the interests of the ruling class in the US, Israel and the Arabian Peninsula. The Palestinians, with or without an identifiable state, would have their role in the neo-liberal economy assured, ensuring peace on earth forever after.

Blinken appears to have accepted the collaborative vision that Jared Kushner imagined, but in stating it, he unwittingly reveals its fundamental flaw. “Asking the international community, asking all of us to help rebuild Gaza only makes sense if there is confidence that what is rebuilt is not lost again because Hamas decides to launch more rocket attacks in the future,” Blinken said. The US has never reconciled the contradiction that comes from the fact that Hamas, which it classifies as a terrorist organization, came to power in a legitimate democratic election in 2006. Some might judge that the US, with a history of sending its mighty military into different regions of the world on false pretexts and prolonging its assaults on other populations for decades, could also be classified as a terrorist organization despite its democratically elected government.

There is something chilling when Blinken evokes the idea “that what is rebuilt is not lost again because Hamas decides to launch more rocket attacks in the future.” He is telling the Palestinians that if they choose to react to any perceived injustice and repression with the limited weapons at their disposal, they should expect everything that is built or “rebuilt” to come toppling down on their heads once again. This is a threat, not a peace proposal. It is a cynical affirmation of might over right. It is also an explicit denial of democracy and respect for the outcome of democratic elections.

The test of Biden’s ability to influence events in the Middle East will come very soon with the result of the Vienna talks concerning the United States’ eventual return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal with Iran. Benjamin Netanyahu is using the occasion to put pressure on the US to abandon the talks. Joe Biden promised during the 2020 election campaign to return to the JCPOA. If the US fails to do so, some will see it as a sign of Israel’s continued power to dictate US foreign policy.

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on 51�Թ�.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post Can the US Really Rally Other Nations? appeared first on 51�Թ�.

Biden Invests His Capital in Israel

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In contrast to US actions, in nearly every speech or , Secretary of State Antony Blinken keeps promising to uphold and defend the “rules-based order.” But he has never clarified whether he means the universal rules of the United Nations Charter and international law or some other set of rules he has yet to define. What rules could possibly legitimize the kind of destruction we just witnessed in Gaza, and who would want to live in a world ruled by them?  

Violating the UN Charter

We have both spent many years protesting the violence and chaos the United States and its allies inflict on millions of people around the world by violating the UN Charter’s against the threat or use of military force. We have always insisted that the US government should comply with the rules-based order of international law.

The United States’ illegal wars and support for allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia have reduced to rubble and left country after country mired in intractable violence and chaos. Yet American leaders have refused to even that aggressive and destructive US and allied military operations violate the rules-based order of the UN Charter and international law. 

Donald Trump, the former US president, was clear that he was not interested in following any “global rules,” only supporting American national interests. His national security adviser, John Bolton, reportedly prohibited National Security Council staff attending the 2018 G20 summit in Argentina from even the words “rules-based order.”&�Բ�����;

So, you might expect us to welcome Blinken’s stated commitment to the “rules-based order” as a long-overdue reversal in US policy. But when it comes to a vital principle like this, it is actions that count. The Biden administration has yet to take any decisive action to bring US foreign policy into compliance with the UN Charter or international law.

For Secretary Blinken, the concept of a “rules-based order” seems to serve mainly as a cudgel with which to attack China and Russia. At a UN Security Council meeting on May 7, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov that instead of accepting the already existing rules of international law, the United States and its allies are trying to come up with “other rules developed in closed, non-inclusive formats, and then imposed on everyone else.”

From the Yalta Agreement to Today

The UN Charter and the rules of international law were developed in the 20^th century precisely to codify the unwritten and endlessly contested rules of customary international law with explicit, written rules that would be binding on all nations. The United States played a leading role in this in international relations, from The Hague peace conferences at the turn of the 20^th century to the signing of the United Nations Charter in San Francisco in 1945 and the revised Geneva Conventions in 1949. This included the new Fourth Geneva Convention to protect civilians, like the countless numbers killed by American weapons in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Gaza.

In 1945, after returning from Yalta, President Franklin D. Roosevelt described the plan for the United Nations to a of Congress. The Yalta Agreement, he said, “ought to spell the end of the system of unilateral action, the exclusive alliances, the spheres of influence, the balances of power, and all the other expedients that have been tried for centuries — and have always failed.” Roosevelt went on to “propose to substitute for all these a universal organization in which all peace-loving nations will finally have a chance to join. I am confident that the Congress and the American people will accept the results of this conference as the beginning of a permanent structure of peace.”

But America’s post-Cold War triumphalism eroded US leaders’ already half-hearted commitment to those rules. The neocons argued that they were no longer relevant and that the US must be ready to impose order on the world by the unilateral threat and use of military force — exactly what the UN Charter prohibits. , the secretary of state under the Clinton administration, and other Democratic leaders embraced new doctrines of “” and a “” to try to carve out politically persuasive exceptions to the explicit rules of the UN Charter. 

America’s “endless wars,” its revived Cold War on Russia and China, its blank check for the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories, and the political obstacles to crafting a more peaceful and sustainable future are some of the fruits of these bipartisan efforts to challenge and weaken the rules-based order.

Today, far from being a leader of the international rules-based system, the United States is an outlier. It has failed to sign or ratify about 50 important and widely accepted multilateral treaties on everything from children’s rights to arms control. Its unilateral sanctions against Cuba, Iran, Venezuela and other countries are themselves violations of international law. The Biden administration has shamefully failed to lift these illegal sanctions, ignoring UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ request to suspend such unilateral coercive measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rules-Based Order

So, is Secretary Blinken’s “rules-based order” a recommitment to Roosevelt’s “permanent structure of peace,” or is it in fact a renunciation of the UN Charter and its purpose, which is peace and security for all of humanity? 

In light of President Joe Biden’s first few months in power, it appears to be the latter. Instead of designing a foreign policy based on the principles and rules of the UN Charter and the goal of a peaceful world, Biden’s policy seems to start from the premises of a $753-billion US military budget, 800 overseas military bases, endless US and allied wars and , and massive weapons sales to repressive regimes. Then it works backward to formulate a policy framework to somehow justify all that.

Once a “war on terror” that only fuels terrorism, violence and chaos was no longer politically viable, hawkish US leaders — both Republican and Democratic — seem to have concluded that a return to the Cold War was the only plausible way to America’s militarist foreign policy and multi-trillion-dollar war machine. But that raised a new set of contradictions. For 40 years, the Cold War was justified by the ideological struggle between the capitalist and communist economic systems. But the Soviet Union disintegrated and Russia is now a capitalist country. China is still governed by its Communist Party, but it has a managed, mixed economy similar to that of Western Europe in the years after World War II — an efficient and dynamic economic system that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in both cases.

So, how can these US leaders justify their renewed Cold War? They have floated the notion of a struggle between “democracy and authoritarianism.” But the United States supports too many horrific dictatorships around the world, especially in the Middle East, to make that a convincing pretext for a Cold War against Russia and China. An American “global war on authoritarianism” would require confronting repressive US allies like Egypt, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, not arming them to the teeth and shielding them from international accountability as the United States is doing.

Just as American and British leaders settled on non-existent “weapons of mass destruction” (WMDs) as the pretext they could all on to justify their war on Iraq in 2003, the US and its allies have settled on defending a vague, undefined “rules-based order” as the justification for their revived Cold War on Russia and China. But like the emperor’s new clothes in the fable and the WMDs in Iraq, the United States’ new rules don’t really exist. They are just its latest smokescreen for a foreign policy based on illegal threats and uses of force and a doctrine of “might makes right.”&�Բ�����;

We challenge President Biden and Secretary Blinken to prove us wrong by actually joining the rules-based order of the UN Charter and international law. That would require a genuine commitment to a very different and more peaceful future, with appropriate contrition and accountability for the United States’ and its allies’ systematic violations of the UN Charter and international law, and the countless violent deaths, ruined societies and widespread chaos they have caused.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Biden’s America Is the New “Middle Kingdom”

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Like most powerful leaders, Chinese President Xi Jinping leads a government that has had people killed and routinely does things contrary to the taste of American politicians. But the image of Xi, a calm, rational bureaucrat, does not resemble the kind of theatrical villain the American public loves to hate. He lacks the character traits, the posture, the gestures, the gait and the sheer stage presence that defined leaders like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and even Hugo Chavez. Perhaps this lack of a recognizable villainous foil to the heroic US president explains why Biden’s bureaucratic secretary of state, Antony Blinken — rather than Biden himself — has assumed the task of defining the terms of the new Cold War with China that is brewing.

Here is how Blinken his case for a warlike posture: “China is the only country with the economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to seriously challenge the stable and open international system — all the rules, values, and relationships that make the world work the way we want it to, because it ultimately serves the interests and reflects the values of the American people.”

�մǻ岹��’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

Open international system:

In the 21^st century, a rulebook of geopolitical relationships, whose doors can be closed and locked only by the United States of America

Contextual Note

Blinken succinctly describes what is meant by American exceptionalism. He distinguishes it from former President Donald Trump’s policy of “America First,” which focused on domestic issues, such as closing off the southern border to immigration and allowing real Americans to concentrate on the essential business of “winning” as they compete against their rivals and neighbors. Blinken feels that Trump’s idea that every nation should pursue its particular interest without regard for the others was a recipe for instability. In contrast, America’s imposition of leadership on dependent allies will ensure stability.

Blinken and Biden apparently believe in international solidarity — provided, of course, that it is structured around themes the US chooses. “Another enduring principle,” Blinken intones, “is that we need countries to cooperate, now more than ever. Not a single global challenge that affects your lives can be met by any one nation acting alone.” But a closer look at his idea of cooperation reveals an idea closer to former President George W. Bush’s “coalition of the willing” than open concertation. He also makes it clear that even though Russia, Iran and North Korea stand out as a vague equivalent of Bush’s “axis of evil,” China is the real threat against which an effective coalition must be assembled.

The Biden administration simply refuses to acknowledge that China’s rise, which has effectively lifted more than 800 million out of poverty, should be considered as having any redeeming factors that might lead the US to promote a policy of cooperation with China rather than confrontation. It may be the administration’s belief in the theory of the “,” which, if taken seriously, fatalistically supposes that a waning power and a rising power must not seek to cooperate, but must be resigned to confronting each other, forcing the weaker to submit.

In his speech, Blinken made this intriguing comment about cooperation: “That requires working with allies and partners, not denigrating them, because our combined weight is much harder for China to ignore.” He is undoubtedly thinking about Trump’s propensity to lambaste US allies in Europe and elsewhere. This may also explain why the Biden administration has avoided reproaching Saudi Arabia with its crimes and blatantly undemocratic behavior.

Blinken asserts that “as the President has promised, diplomacy — not military action — will always come first.” But, contrary to most expectations, there has been no diplomacy with Iran, and the attempt at diplomacy with China last week in Alaska turned to the kind of confrontation that precedes military action. At the same time, Admiral Philip Davidson has indicated that he believes war with China will be because of the US commitment to defending Taiwan’s independence. The Financial Times that “Biden has taken a tough rhetorical posture towards China over its military activity around Taiwan and in the South and East China Seas.” The tone in Washington seems closer to preparation for war than an intensification of diplomacy.

The Chinese have expanded their geopolitical activity with a focus on infrastructure rather than military presence. The US sees this as an assault on its global hegemony. Underlying this feeling is the reality that since the beginning of the century, the US has seen a decline in its influence across the globe. The rise of China means that any new president of the United States must feel that getting tough with China will be electorally advantageous. But posturing with an eye to seducing the electorate can sometimes lead to actions that severely undermine the very stability Blinken believes must be ensured through American leadership.

Historical Note

Antony Blinken’s logic can be seen as the application of John Mearsheimer’s notion of US hegemony as the central feature of a “realist” foreign policy. That realism reflects a binary vision of the world, as a choice between hegemony and anarchy. Hegemony is the lesser of the two evils and is therefore deemed good. No great power should renounce its quest for hegemony. For the US, ever since the Monroe Doctrine established in 1823, regional hegemony has become the reigning orthodoxy.

As a realist, Mearsheimer opposes the “neo-liberal” idea that US hegemony should be guided by the belief in a moral mission. Because hegemony is good, its abuses will always be tolerable as conditions for maintaining the good. Mearsheimer even had a soft spot for Trump’s “America First” approach. Secretary Blinken and President Joe Biden have chosen to deviate from Mearsheimer by promoting a version of hegemony that relies on a return to the moralism of the neo-liberal agenda. They paint the US as a force for promoting democracy and human rights across the globe. Biden it leading by the force of example rather than the example of force.

Blinken offers some examples. “It requires standing up for our values when human rights are abused in Xinjiang or when democracy is trampled in Hong Kong, because if we don’t, China will act with even greater impunity.” Does “standing up for” mean envisioning war? The absurdity of his statement becomes clearer when one imagines the way the Chinese might reformulate it to criticize the US: It requires standing up for our values when human rights are abused among the black population in America’s inner cities or when democracy is denied and trampled in Puerto Rico, because if we don’t, the US will act with even greater impunity. Only a global hegemon “stands up” in that manner.

The realists correctly point out that the attitude that consists of feeling justified to use force on the grounds that another nation is not living up to one’s own rigorous moral or political standards is at best a distraction and at worst an invitation to chaos. Realists, like Mearsheimer or Henry Kissinger, respect power alone rather than any abstract notion of virtue. They see moral considerations as irrelevant, though they tend to think that, according to some mysterious metaphysical principle, the values of the US are more valid or trustworthy than those of other nations.

Power will always assert itself. Superior power will usually win every spontaneous contest. That is the reality of politics. But is that a recipe for stability? The real question that every honest human being must consider is this: Should politics and political thinking alone rule human society? Is there a place for morality and not just as a feature of political rhetoric?

*[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on 51�Թ�.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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